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Intel issues apologies for racial insensitivity in its recently pulled new product ad
Posted | August 06, 2007 06:47 AM
Intel, the computer chip maker, has been forced to apologize for an advertisement which has been widely criticized as racist. The ad, which was for a new generation of micro-processors, showed six black sprinters crouched in the start position in front a white man wearing a shirt and chinos in an office.

Above the image was a slogan which read: "Multiply computer performance and maximize the power of your employees."

Blogs were quick to spot the connotation of a white master surveying a group of black workers apparently bowed at his feet.

In a statement on its website, Intel said: "We made a bad mistake. I know why and how, but that simply doesn't make it better.

http://www.dvrepublic.org/story.php?n=977&x=3

To me it seems that the actual apology has gathered more interest than the ad itself.

I think you're right on that. Having looked at the ad, and the apology, in the first place I think that blacks that are upset over it are just looking for something to be upset about. I don't discount that fact that whites kept black slaves for hundreds of years, but this was an ad, nothing more. Intel should not have bowed to the pressure. They might have been better off issuing a statement saying that any interpretation of "black slaves bowing to a white master" were those of the person interpreting the ad that way.
Sometimes these kind of things happens with no intention of hurting anyone. Hopefully it was that we don't see any more differences between white and black people that Intel didn't even care to think about that.
A professor in the community college I went to got in trouble for a math question on an exam because apparently he offended the black population of the school.
How did a math question offend blacks may I ask?
What I love about these kind of problems is that because an apology was required the ad got famous and suddenly took a huge proportion (everyone who was curious went to find the ad) exactley like baned books. When a country or the pope bans a book it just makes everyone want to read it so all in all Intel is more cunning in saying sorry than in fighting.
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